You're Not A Normal Boss
by Harkpad
Summary: A One-Shot addressing Tosh's reaction when Jack saves her life in the field. But really, it's about Tosh. Then again, it's about Jack.


**You're Not a Normal Boss (a one-shot)**

Tosh was looking for Jack.

She hadn't seen him since the incident yesterday morning, the one where the alien lashed out at Tosh and caught her unawares and Jack stepped between them and took the sting from the alien himself. The alien was like a worker bee and it died soon after it stung him; it died long before he did. And Tosh had watched as Ianto sat with Jack on the bed in the small bedroom off of the conference room and Jack writhed in sweaty convulsions that none of Owen's sedatives could stop. Ianto held him, though, and Tosh watched from the doorway as Jack finally convulsed into death hours later, and she found herself holding her breath for him like she did the first time he died after she learned of his condition.

She remembered that first time she held her breath, after John Hart left and Jack was back from wherever like a damaged prodigal son. (She knew he was damaged because an idea struck her as she slept, and she had come back to the hub in the middle of the night soon after his return, and she heard him hoarsely screaming his way through a crushing nightmare). It was the first time they'd seen him die since Owen shot him, and this time it was a stray Weevil claw that felled him. They all had held their breath with fear in their eyes as Ianto sat with him that first time.

After a while she got used to it, seeing him killed in the field and watching as Ianto slipped in from wherever he was to hold Jack in his lap and wait for him to revive. She didn't like to watch the revival, though, feeling like she was watching the two men wordlessly declare something every time it happened. She did not feel right intruding on those moments and so made herself be somewhere else whenever Jack was about to revive.

_This time_, though, she held her breath again and watched again, for the sake of her own irrational, guilty fear. But he did come back, and Ianto held him like always and she crept in after and asked if Jack wanted her to bring some tea. He nodded weakly and she brought him a cup of milky tea and then left the two men alone for the rest of the afternoon.

She worked on her predictor for a while and then commiserated with Owen about the medical uses for a particular scalpel they had found – it closed wounds, but not for very long. Owen wondered if she could, in his words, 'soup it up' so that it worked permanently, and then she and Gwen and Owen got ready to leave for dinner after Ianto came upstairs and told them Jack had said it was okay to go home for the night.

"Is he okay?" she asked Ianto softly.

Ianto looked at her and then down at the floor before answering. "He will be. Owen thinks there might be some venom left in his system, and it's making him uncomfortable. He'll sleep it off, I imagine." Tosh nodded and Ianto turned and slipped back down to Jack.

Tosh didn't eat much at dinner with her colleagues, and Gwen and Owen found themselves drinking alone after Tosh left the restaurant soon after the food arrived, claiming a project at home to work on. Instead, she went home and fell asleep on her couch watching an old World War Two film called "Fighter Squadron," and she dreamed of Americans in England flying planes and dancing at the Ritz.

The next morning when Tosh returned to the Hub for work, she found Ianto making coffee and wearing jeans and a t-shirt, barefoot. She was in a bit early, puzzling over Owen's request for the scalpel, so Ianto looked a bit caught when he saw her. "Haven't had a chance to shower yet," he explained sheepishly.

"It's a good look for you," she smiled at him.

He gestured to the coffee, "This is for Jack, industrial grade, but I'll put some on for everyone once it's done." 

"Thanks," Tosh replied. She found that as she stood there talking to him that she had stepped into their private world again and she felt awkward. "I promised Owen I'd work on something for him, so I'll see you in a bit," she said, returning to the safety of her workstation.

But nothing seemed to work for her that morning. She couldn't puzzle out the scalpel, she misread the Rift alert and sent Gwen and Ianto out for an alert that didn't actually happen, and she somehow managed to crash the CCTV in the Hub for two hours before she found the solution. It was at the end of this string of mishaps that she realized that she hadn't seen Jack since the incident yesterday morning, and so she went looking for him.

She found him sitting on curb just off of the invisible lift with his coat wrapped around him, the gentle breeze from the bay rustling his hair as he watched the scene pass in front of him. She sat down next to him and they silently watched the people mill around the Plass for a bit. She finally looked over at him with a small smile and said, "You're not a normal boss."

He didn't respond, but he put his arm around her shoulder and drew her in close to him and they watched the people wander around for a while longer, and then descended back into the Hub together.


End file.
